Ithaca College students just staged a walk-out to protest racial injustices on campus

According to a piece in the Ithaca College student newspaper The Ithacan, the school isn’t all that different from the University of Missouri: “At both institutions, student protest groups have spoken out against systemic racism and called for the resignation of their college’s presidents.”

Today, the two schools further mirrored one another when Ithaca students staged a walkout around 1:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday over alleged racial injustices, according to the Ithaca Journal:

According to the Facebook page for the event, members of the campus community will be “walking out for all the injustices students of color face on this campus and other colleges nationally. With University of Missouri’s president stepping down, we demand Rochon to do the same as it is vital to fight against both covert and overt racism in all places of education and empowerment.”

According to a tweet from Journal reporter Kelsey O’ Connor, “at least a thousand” students were present at the walkout. Many students held signs, some of them indicating their displeasure with Ithaca college president Tom Rochon.

The Journal recounts “several controversial incidents” at the school since the start of the semester, including a campus-run panel where a woman of color was repeatedly referred to as a “savage.” (The president later apologized.)